Engadget is reporting via a number of tipsters that the popular PlayStation emulator PSX4Droid has been pulled from Android market. Google's statement on the issue?

"We remove apps from Android Market that violate our policies."

Well, that's helpful. Actually, upon a short perusal of the US Patent and Trademark Office database, the reason became clear to us: PSX4Droid is infringing on a trademark owned by Sony for the acronym "PSX." This means PSX4Droid probably just needs a name change before being given the green light for republication. Considering the impending release of the Xperia Play, Sony seems to have timed its complaint rather strategically.

Another PlayStation emulator, FPSe, was not removed - lending considerably credence to the trademark infringement theory.

On a somewhat related note, speculation that N64oid has been pulled from the Market for similar reasons is apparently false. The developer of the app decided to remove it from the market himself in order to take some time to get it performing at an acceptable level, according to a few sources. However, it's worth noting that Nintendo of America does hold the "N64" trademark, so really, it's anyone's guess until we hear from the developer.

Comments

Kenshin

im glad it got pulled off the market. it was seriously a crappy attempt at PSX and then he went around the charged consumers for another "updated" version that was just as bad. I hope it doesnt come back to the market. FPSe is where its at!

ari-free

You wouldn't be so happy if google banned all emulators from the market.

Eric

Of course not, he even said as much in his comment...

max

yeah that was random...

dethduck

No great loss either way. Development on it pretty much stopped, been forever since it was updated. The last time it was updated, the update was released as a seperate you had to buy all over again, so no tears here. FPSe is far better anyhow.

max

But i paid for it... I bet google is in the right for this one, if google really wanted to remove the emulators they could have by removing both fpse and psx4droid... glad to see psx4droid gone the developer always complained

Richart

I wished Engadget was as involved as you guys here are..they love to rush stories without any real research into them. Correlation doesnt mean causation.